I was built for this
On family, history, and why telling stories that refuse to be forgotten is the only work that's ever made sense. (Wikipedia; Stephen Goupil Photography)
What is the one thing that keeps you going?
Some people are guided in life by a strong dedication to their family and friends. Others keep pushing because they're career-driven. And then some are led in life for love, faith, or the sheer desire of venturing into the unknown.
For me, it's history: not as nostalgia, but for navigation.
There's a constant history that has guided me my whole life. And yet, every time my grandfather told me, it felt less like a lesson and more like a story from a children's book – one only a certain kind of kid with a love of history would enjoy. So, like every story of that nature, I start with the quintessential beginning: Once upon a time.
Once upon a time, a young Black boy was born on a Caribbean island. My grandfather didn't know which one, but later I learned it was Grenada. Born into slavery, he later arrived in Saint-Domingue, then the crown jewel of France's colonial empire, as an enslaved person. During the American Revolutionary War, he served as a drummer boy for the regiment of freed Black men from the French colony. What he observed on the battlefield then undoubtedly guided him to take up arms alongside his compatriots as the Haitian Revolution rose. He was a soldier, a father, a revolutionary leader, and, one day, a crowned ruler of the Kingdom of Haiti.
My imaginings of King Henry Christophe, his kingdom, and his court danced in my head as a kid and a teenager, and occasionally as an adult. Though history would bemoan him as a ruthless tyrant, newer scholarly work has re-examined King Henry's legacy in recent years as a benevolent ruler who was critiqued and derided in a very racist and colorist 19th-century world. But Henry's life reminded me of something I'd carry long before I had the words for it: that the world has never needed much of a reason to look unkindly upon people like me. To consider us less than human – if not human at all. Henry knew that world intimately. And he built a kingdom anyway.
It's not too dissimilar from the path I've walked in my transition. A decade on (I medically transitioned a full year before socially transitioning), I persist despite a world that tells Black trans and queer folks we're undeserving of a life well made. And yet, I've done it all. I've never rested on my laurels, but I'm proud of the professional and personal growth I've experienced over the years. And I'm grateful for it all, thanks to the man born into slavery but died a crowned ruler.
Because that story my grandfather told me as a kid wasn't just a chapter from a history book or a fairytale. It was the story of my family. Henry was my direct ancestor, albeit illegitimately. But the determination to push through despite it all runs through my veins. And I'm immensely proud of the queen I've become.
Stories have the power to inspire, educate, and give us hope for a brighter future. That is why I love writing and interviewing: there is power in telling stories. It can literally save someone's life. So what's a story that inspires you? Email me or slide in my DMs to let me know.
With love,
Marie-Adélina
@ageofadelina | marie-adelina@polish.media
(P.S.: For my book and/or history lovers, highly recommend for nonfiction Marlene Daut's The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe, and for fiction Vanessa Riley's Queen of Exiles.)
